School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Ashton Community Science College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 15 families who named Ashton Community Science College as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 169 and 173 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Lancashire actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1.02

first choices for every place available

173 first preferences for 169 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Ashton Community Science College

There is no published appeal success rate for Ashton Community Science College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Lancashire as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Lancashire, 28.4% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 768 of 2,706 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Lancashire.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Lancashire ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Ashton Community Science College turned first-choice families away in 7 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 3 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Ashton Community Science College, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.89 per place 120 first choices 135 places 2016/17 0.83 per place 125 first choices 151 places 2017/18 0.74 per place 95 first choices 128 places 2018/19 0.82 per place 126 first choices 153 places 2019/20 0.87 per place 139 first choices 159 places 2020/21 0.79 per place 149 first choices 188 places 2021/22 0.88 per place 168 first choices 190 places 2022/23 0.93 per place 148 first choices 159 places 2023/24 1.14 per place 182 first choices 159 places 2024/25 1.08 per place 170 first choices 158 places 2025/26 1.17 per place 185 first choices 158 places 2026/27 1.02 per place 173 first choices 169 places
First preferences per place at Ashton Community Science College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 173 first preferences for 169 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Ashton Community Science College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 135 120 120 0.89
2016/17 151 125 122 0.83
2017/18 128 95 95 0.74
2018/19 153 126 126 0.82
2019/20 159 139 122 0.87
2020/21 188 149 138 0.79
2021/22 190 168 149 0.88
2022/23 159 148 127 0.93
2023/24 159 182 139 1.14
2024/25 158 170 144 1.08
2025/26 158 185 148 1.17
2026/27 169 173 158 1.02

Places offered

169

in 2026/27

Named first choice

173

355 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

91.3%

158 of 173

Offers to families outside the council

0%

0 of 169 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

860

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

868

100.9% of capacity

Over its capacity by

8

reported as full or beyond

Sixth form places

0

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Ashton Community Science College has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Ashton Community Science College was at or beyond its stated capacity across Years 7 to 11. A school in that position has a straightforward case that another admission would cause it difficulty, and an appeal here has to succeed on the strength of your child's own circumstances rather than on spare room.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Ashton Community Science College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 750 1,500 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,482 places 1,010 on roll 2010/11 839 places 920 on roll 2011/12 856 places 876 on roll 2012/13 856 places 834 on roll 2013/14 856 places 765 on roll 2014/15 866 places 739 on roll 2015/16 845 places 710 on roll 2016/17 810 places 701 on roll 2017/18 800 places 674 on roll 2018/19 800 places 717 on roll 2020/21 800 places 786 on roll 2021/22 860 places 824 on roll 2022/23 860 places 856 on roll 2023/24 860 places 846 on roll 2024/25 860 places 868 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Community school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
No religious character
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Lancashire

Postcode PR2 1SL. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 119707).

Other contested secondary schools in Lancashire

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.